FMCSA

Six members of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed a class-action suit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last week under the Federal Privacy Act charging that the agency is unlawfully disseminating reports of driver safety records to potential employers.

UPDATED -- Comments on the proposed Electronic Logging Device mandate cover the full spectrum of reactions, from outrage and disdain at Big Brother government to applause for a sensible and long-overdue safety rule.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced Friday that 8,000 more health professionals have been added to the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners since the new system for U.S. DOT medical examinations launched last month with 22,000 providers.

A group of a dozen owner-operators is challenging the call of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association for resignation of the top federal truck safety official.
“Most of us are members of OOIDA and we respectfully disagree with our leadership on this issue,” the group said in a letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Former FMCSA Administrator Annette Sandberg supports the trucking industry's push for a study on the impact of the current restart provision while rolling the restart rules back to pre-July 2013. Sandberg says the trucking industry supports suspending the restart restrictions because they believe that good public policy comes from good data and a good understancfing of the facts, not from emotional appeals.

Partisan differences halted Senate debate on an appropriations bill that includes a suspension of the 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule. As the debate began, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced an amendment that would change Sen. Susan Collins’s provision calling for suspension of the restart and a study of its impact.

A group of small carriers and brokers lost their legal challenge of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA safety enforcement program. In a ruling handed down Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the suit by the Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says it's time to raise motor carrier insurance minimums. This week the House of Representatives said, not so fast. Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge looks at some of the pros and cons in her All That's Trucking Blog.

The trucking industry effort to suspend the current 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule missed a gear Tuesday when the House passed an appropriations bill that does not contain such a provision.

UPDATED -- The U.S. House approved an amendment that would stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from changing insurance minimums. The amendment is a long way from becoming law but it highlights opposition to the agency even considering a change in the minimums.

The bill that would suspend the new 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule also sets a deadline for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to publish its electronic logging device mandate: January 30, 2015.